This invention relates to a toothbrush that also comprises two other dental hygiene accessories such as a small interdental hardbrush and a rubber cone shaped periodontal gum massager and stimulator, ready for use as part of the same artifact.
In the field of dental hygiene, the dentists have available a multiplicity of tools and brushes that they use for cleaning the teeth, massaging the gums and preventing periodontal diseases. The dentists recommend that in addition to brush cleaning the teeth with a conventional toothbrush, every person should as frequently as possible, individually, massage and stimulate the gums to firm the gum tissue and prevent periodontal disease. To achieve this effect, a rubber pointed cone shaped massager and stimulator tip, small enough for insection into and between two teeth, at the gum line, should be used. On insertion between the teeth, the user applies light pressure to the rubber tip so that, besides acting like a toothpick, dislodging from the little spaces any possible minuscule particle, with a circular motion, it will also massage and stimulate the gums. Until now, the said rubber tip has been generally attached at right angles to the end of a special tool, to a separate small diameter bent tubular tool, or molded firmly on and projecting from the end of a toothbrush.
Dentists recommend also to brush the curved faces of the teeth where they interface with the gums, and so a small compact interdental hard brush should be used to fit in the pocket space formed by the gum and two adjacent teeth. By moving this small hard brush in and out, and side to side, it cleans the portions of the teeth generally not reached by a conventional toothbrush.
In fact, these unrelated operations require, besides the conventional toothbrush, two different tools to efficiently accomplish the perfect tooth brushing and lateral cleaning as well as gum massage functions. All the three tools, if separate, are difficult to handle, package, carry around and are independently vulnerable to loss, damage, contamination, never seem to be available when needed, and are very inconvenient for separate storage and accessability.
All of the heretofor known toothbrushes that contain a rubber gum massager and stimulator tip attached to the end of the handle suffer from a number of disadvantages:
(a) when said gum massager and stimulator tip is positioned on the end of the handle, it projects outwardly normal to the flat of the handle, and when the toothbrush user grabs the handle, the rubber point bent over and can become damaged;
(b) the said gum massager and stimulator tip on the end of the handle can become contaminated by the hand of the user when he (or she) handles the toothbrush and his (or her) hand overlaps the projecting rubber point;
(c) the said gum massage stimulator tip molded onto the handle cannot be removed or replaced if needed, should the rubber point becomes broken or worn by the hands of the user;
(d) when after brushing, the said toothbrush ending projecting gum massager and stimulator tip is put away and is not thoroughly covered or wrapped, it can become disclored, dirty or contaminated from exposure to the surrounding where it was retained in. This contamination, then, is transferred to the gums by the user.
To accommodate the many dental requirements for tools to meet diverse dental situations, prior art has developed a series of systems and arrangements that add and exchange dental tool heads to a variety of handles. This exchange operation requires the user to store, provide access to, and spend time applying and removing the various components during his (or her) toothbrush operation. Such loose components can easily be misplaced, lost, contaminated or just not used because they are not readily available in the time needed to perform at least twice daily the complete tooth and gum hygiene requirement.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,058,230, Milton Hodosh et all, presents a cheap handle with a removable head. There is little or no need to have loose components that must be stored, protected, found and applied for each toothbrush operation on a regular basis. Every component must be readily available or it will not be used . Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,276 Kuo-Ming Lee, presents a removable brush head and a latching assembly to lock to the handle. Again, the brush head is a loose component that latches in and out of the handle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,934,295 Vladam Gekhter et al, also presents a patent that contains a handle with a multiplicity of removable brushes and tool components that require storage and must be made available for ready use by the toothbrush user. This configuration provides the dentist with considerable options when addressing tooth problems in a dentist office, but is not the type of tool that encourages ready, constant, scheduled, dedicated everyday individual user to spend needed time and deligence on his (or her) dental hygiene requirements. To encourage good dental practices, the required tools must be on hand, ready for immediate use, and not inside a box or in a drawer, forgotten or overlooked.
The uniqueness of the present ready to use triple-clean effect toothbrush does not infringe on either of the above referred to Patents.